


My Tumblr Collection

by SeldomUsedPen



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe, Fantasy, Gen, One Shot Collection, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-19
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2019-11-24 19:12:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,434
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18168956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SeldomUsedPen/pseuds/SeldomUsedPen
Summary: A collection of oneshots I write for different Tumblr prompts.Maybe there will be romance in the future, but mostly gen.





	1. A Deathly Profession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt will be shown in the end, I don´t want to spoil anything for you, by showing you the key element beforehand.  
> This prompt is written in secound person, so reader´s pov, so maybe it feels strange to read
> 
> Not beta read

Your phone rings. The sound shreds through the silence of your car, startling you awake from your perch on the backseats. Blindly you grab for the device softly cursing under your breath. It was far too early for work. Squinting at the bright screen you read through your messages.

_One call in absence._

Of course, they always call when it’s inconvenient for you, it´s not like they have a whole army of drivers at their beck and call. You don´t bother calling back, they didn´t call because they wanted to talk, you have worked for them long enough to know at least that. Indeed there is another sound coming from your phone. A message this time. Just a location from some road in the middle of nowhere one hour drive away. You sigh. These are the worst jobs.

Stretching as far as the roof of your car allows you let your back pop back into place. No cursing this time, this job is important after all. You pull your jacket from your lap where it has been used as an impromptu blanket for the duration of your nap. Shuffling into the sleeves and zipping it closed you shove open the car door. The air is crisp and there is a thick fog visible even in the near darkness of an early winter morning. Not a nice drive then. You contemplate pulling one of the cancer sticks out of your pocket. Your boss always gives you a packet after a job, even though you told them you don’t smoke. Maybe you should just start; it would make your drive much more bearable. Shaking your head you shove the packet even deeper into your pocket. You will get to your boss fast enough, no need to make it even faster. A low humourless chuckle escaped you. What a joke your life has become.

Squeezing yourself into the driver seat you let out huff. _Today will be long day._ You buckle your seatbelt and let the motor sputter to life. You need to turn the key a few times before it actually starts. _A new car_ , you think, _I´ll just get a new car_. But you already know you won´t. Too many memories are buried in the scratched interior and the dusty dashboard. You activate the navigation on your phone and pull out of the parking lot. _A long day indeed._

-:-

The radio repeats its newest hit for the third time when you hit the brakes. You can tell you have reached your destination even before your phone calls it out. You know the drill. The signs. Closing the app on your phone you continue driving. Slower this time, searching. Seeing what you searched for you suddenly understand why your boss called you for the job and not someone else of their driver army.  A girl sits on the side of the road, wide-eyed and scared. You stop the car a few metres away and exit.

“Hey, kid.” You call out softly. “Hi.” She answers confused. Confusion is good, confusion you can work with. “Do you know why you are here?” She looks up at you for a short time, then lets her gaze wander across the road, not catching on anything. “I think I wanted to drive home… My mom is waiting for me.” A sad smile dances across your lips before you let your face harden once again. You look over to what was probably her car. “I don´t think you can drive there alone.” For once she focuses on the road, but she doesn´t seem to see it. “I… no” Letting your body kneel besides her, you try to anchor her. You look around, but she is alone. “How about I drive you there? I was on my way anyway.” It doesn´t matter that she hasn´t said where her mother lives, she probably didn´t even remember. You wouldn`t drive her there anyway. “That´s very kind of you… I think…” She smiles softly. Not in shock then, you guess. You smile back. It would be an easy job then, it always is with these innocent ones. “How about you go and sit in the car, I´ll be there in a moment.” She complies and walks over almost in trance. Your smile drops from your face as you walk over to her car. There is a phone there. Three missed calls it says when you unlock it. Her mother must care for her a lot, you think sadly. Swiping over the cracked screen you open her messenger app and write an answer to her mother. It´s all the closure you can give her. _I love you mom._ Simple and short. Putting the phone back where you found it you walk slowly back. Before you go to your car you call an ambulance, no need to have more loss than necessary. Your boss is greedy enough already.

You smile over at her when you seat yourself, but her mind is gone again and her eyes continue to drift unseeingly. You start driving away and it speaks testaments for her state of mind that not once she turns around to look at the wreckage left behind.

-:-

When you reach your boss you park at the gate. You aren´t allowed to enter, not yet anyway. “We are here,” you whisper. She smiles lazily and you would have called her an airhead in any other case, but you know for a fact it´s not her fault. So you just exit the car and open the door for her. Just as she steps out your boss arrives at the gate. They smile and congratulate you on a job well done. For one second you contemplate to just quit right then and there and step across the gate with the girl. Maybe punch your boss for all the things they have done. But you won´t, not yet. You don’t have a death wish after all. So you smile back, frigid and loveless. They put another pack of cigarettes into your hand. The rest of the payment you know you won´t get here. They pull the girl into the gate, she follows willingly and waves you goodbye. Your boss doesn´t, no visit here is a goodbye after all, it´s always just a ‘ _See you later_ ’. They wish you a good life and walk away with the girl at their hand. You stare at their retreating backs for a long time before your boss´ words register. _What a nerve._

You shuffle back into your car awkwardly and completely spent. You don´t hate ferrying them over.  It´s never knowing what happens to them afterwards that you hate. Putting your thoughts away you start the motor, maybe you can drive back to the homey diner you ate at yesterday. Or you could crash at a motel and sleep in a bed for once this week.

-:-

 You hate the not knowing, but you think knowing would make your job even more complicated, so sometimes it´s easier to just forget. So it´s no wonder that you ignore the news for today. You don´t want to read about the car crash on the road you came from after all. It´s just easier to forget about the casualty and the hurt drunk truck driver. To drown the images of the car wreckage and the burnt body with the cracked phone out. To silence all the news channels talking about the victims last message or the mysterious emergency call. Sometimes it´s just that much easier.

But you know that come tomorrow when your phone rings you awake and you jump back into the driver seat of your old beat down car to drive for hours to the next job location, you would never trade this job for something else. Not everyone gets to work for Death after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The prompt:](https://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/183408704519/you-are-an-uber-driver-for-death-picking-up-souls)  
> You are an Uber driver for Death, picking up souls before taking them to their final destination. 
> 
> I took a few liberties with the Uber driver, mostly because in my country we don´t have Uber drivers and I really only know the gist of it.


	2. Soulbound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes you don´t want to know. Sometimes a name is better left unsaid.

„Oh, I´m terribly sorry, Mr. …?“

The young lady with a now empty coffee cup nervously holds out her hand. An empty stare answers her enquiry. After a moment of silence she seems to have realized her mistake and giggles awkwardly into hand.

“Sorry, I will just call you Smith then… I´m really sorry for running into you, Mr. Smith. I should have watched where I was going.”

The man in front of her has already risen from where he had fallen and dusts off his shirt while rubbing the coffee stain deeper into the fabric. “It´s okay… I guess.” He watches her hands cradling her empty cup suspiciously, almost expecting her to pull a weapon out of the styrofoam.

“No, it´s not. I feel bad for getting my coffee all over you. And I´m short a cup now. How about we go back to where I got it from and I buy you a cup too?”

She seems happy and bubbly, but _Mr. Smith_ still doesn’t trust her.

“I´m okay, no need for coffee.”

Her smile falters for second before coming back with newfound vigour. “Don´t be a stranger. It´s the least I can do. You can call me Kiki if you want.”

Her lips pull back when she starts grinning and Mr. Smith is blinded by her pearly teeth for a moment. He still stands there not quite knowing what to expect from this stranger, but Kiki ignores his reluctance and hooks her arm into his. His eyes stray to her wrist for a moment trying to read the name written there through the thick leather band. It´s impossible of course, but he tries anyway, just like he always does after meeting new people.

Kiki is not as untrusting of the world as he is, or maybe she just hides it better, and pulls him off to her favourite coffee shop, all the while babbling about trivial matters. When they finally reach the door to the shop, Mr. Smith already knows about her cat, her grandmother´s garden and the squeaking floor board on the third step of her staircase. He indulges in her idle chatter, trying to get his mind off of thinking about the many ways of how she could kill him right then and there. His psychologist always tells him to meet new people.It should help with the anxiety and paranoia. So he lets her voice wash over him and drown out his worries. He shouldn’t be thinking about the name on his wrist right now. Instead he orders a Latte with caramel drizzle on Kiki´s vehement insistence that it was ‘ _the best_ ’ and listens.

It´s after their third drink that Kiki stops her babble and looks into her cup. “Sorry… I know I´m talking too much.” _Mr. Smith_ , or Jay as he told her to call him, has listened patiently up to that point, he loves conversation as long as he has no need to contribute. Now his eyebrows pull down into a frown. “No,” he says simply. “You don´t talk too much, not at all.” “Really?” Her eyes leave her cup momentarily to stare hopefully at his face.

“Not at all, don´t let people tell you that.”

She smiles, a small smile, but real nonetheless. Nothing like the bright grin at the beginning of their meeting, but somehow much more genuine like all he smiles up to that point. Jay realizes he likes that smile a lot more on her face.

“How about I give you my phone number and we meet here again tomorrow? I really enjoyed our chat.”

She laughs at that and he scribbles his number on a napkin. Forgotten was his trepidation of the name on her wrist. Or his wrist for that matter.

It takes a lot more coffee meetings before she asks him out. Of course it would be her asking him, he was far to shy after all. The leather still never left their wrists, no matter how close they became.

It is three years after their marriage when Kiki can’t bear it anymore. They lay in bed on a summer morning when she says it.

“Cecilia.”

It doesn’t happen often, that she speaks in short sentences. It’s something many people think annoying but for Jay it´s only another quirk of he that he loves dearly.

“What?”

“My name… I don´t think we ever told each other our real names. You don’t have to tell me yours, but I want you to know mine.”

Jay stares at her with an unreadable look in his eyes before storming into their bathroom and emptying his stomach into the toilet. She looks after him confused. “I don´t think it´s that bad of a name.” She mumbles before making her way over to the bathroom, slower than her husband. There is heavy feeling in her chest when she see tear tracks on his cheeks.

“Are you okay…?” She trails off, knowing he was everything but okay. His eyes find hers and her heart breaks a little. He looks so lost…

“You… Cecilia… why…?” He even sounds lost, like she just destroyed his world with her revelation. She almost asks, but her eyes find his arm where in his panic he ripped the leather from he wrist. She finds her own name written there in thick bold letters.

“No...” she whispers, her voice barely audible. Silence follows into the bathroom, only broken by Jay´s quiet sobbing. They stay there for a moment, Cecilia frozen at the door and Jay leaning on the toilet. Then she opens the knot on her own wrist. _Jeremy_ , it reads. She takes a step forward and collapses onto Jay, no _Jeremy_ , and hugs him to her chest. “This… this doesn’t change anything. We don´t… we don’t have to do this.” Her voice cracks while she talks. His arms snake around her and return her hug, holding onto her like a life line. The unspoken ‘ _but it will happen anyway_ ’ stays like poison in their hearts.

Not everyone has a name on their wrists. Some can lead luckier lives. But the ones that do, they live in quiet fear. Because somewhere out there lives a person with their own name on their skin. They know they will meet that person, after all their fate has been forever bound together. Because that name is like a promise, a promise from beyond: One of them will die by the others hand. It doesn’t matter which one, it doesn’t matter how, it doesn’t even matter when.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [The prompt:](https://writing-prompt-s.tumblr.com/post/185911002895/reverse-soulmate-au-where-you-are-destined-to)  
> Reverse Soulmate AU, where you are destined to kill another person.


End file.
